The Accidental Time Travellers

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

“Look Jess, we’ve got to try and get back somehow, but we all have to do it together.”

They were in the garage, putting the various components of the time machine back on the shelves. Jack was placing them close together, so they would be easy to find, but not obviously so.

“I know. I’m just scared it won’t work again, and we’ll get into even more trouble. Anyway, how are we going to do it now?”

“We’ll just have to put it all together again, that’s all. It doesn’t take long.”

But more important than plugging in the graphic equalizer to a mobile phone, or the other way around, was making sure the battery was fully charged. He ran upstairs, picked it up and carried it back down to the garage. The charger was on the workbench that stuck out of the shelving unit as an extension of the middle shelf. He put the battery down next to it, connected the cables and switched on the charger.

They still had to bring the wood downstairs. “Don’t worry, I’ll do it,” said Jack. He wanted to try and keep as much of the structure together as possible, again without making it too obvious.

The floorboards were easy to put together, so they weren’t a problem to take apart. Where he had nailed the uprights to the edge of the floor, he loosened the nail a little and rotated the piece of wood until it lay flat along the edge of the floorboard, and did the same with the cross-struts.

As he worked, he thought about what they should do. Somehow they would have to put everything together again without his parents knowing. He was pretty sure his mum would be keeping a close eye on them for the next few days, so it wasn’t going to be easy.

Of course, they didn’t have to try to go back straight away; it didn’t really matter when they did it, so long as they arrived back at the right time. So far that hadn’t been a problem, so with a well-charged battery it should be a piece of cake.

It all sounded so simple in his head.

When he had finished dismantling the frame, he carried it down to the pile at the back of the garage and placed it back under the tarpaulin. All that work had made him feel hungry, but the worry of what Dad would say made him nervous, so he also felt a little sick. This was something only a cold glass of milk could cure.

“All finished,” he said to his mum as he walked into the kitchen and got the milk out of the fridge.

“Good,” she replied. Nothing else, just one word.

Jack decided hanging around the kitchen waiting for dinner wasn’t his best option at the moment, so he poured himself a long glass, put the bottle back in the fridge and went to find Jess.

She was in the living room watching something on CBBC.

“What’s this?”

“I’m not sure, I’m not really watching it. Something to do with aliens and space travel, I think. I couldn’t be bothered to turn it over to anything else.”

“Fair enough. Mum still seems to be upset.”

“Well, you know what she’s like. It’ll take her at least until the morning before she calms down. I’m more worried about what Dad is going to say.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” said Jack. He was only fifty per cent certain that would be the case, but that was good enough for him at the moment.

The next half an hour was spent without a word being said by either of them. He managed to convince her to change over to Johnny Bravo, as this didn’t need much concentration to be able to follow the plot, and was a more welcome distraction than the badly acted programme Jess had been watching.